


Across Five Lifetimes

by doublejoint



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-01 22:23:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20265457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: "I wish I could have five different lives! Then I could have [...] fallen in love with the same person, five different times."





	Across Five Lifetimes

**Author's Note:**

> full ver of the quote was the prompt (it's from bleach)
> 
> for dw user starriewolf
> 
> i haven't really written akashi in?? a v long time??
> 
> [ 4 AU + 1 canon ]

Akashi is, of course, aware of Rakuzan’s reputation for basketball. It’s not why he chose to attend the school; that would be its sterling academic standing and the location, in Kyoto where his family has a house but where his father never goes. He has no intention of ever attending a school basketball game, or seeking out any of the players, but as he wins the vote for student council president in a landslide, he does have to know the class representatives on sight.

Momoi Satsuki is the basketball team’s student manager, and Akashi’s vice president dutifully whispers that she and the basketball team’s new star were a package deal--his grades are atrocious though he’s clearly intelligent, but where one goes the other goes, and, well, Akashi should really see him play sometimes. He’s the greatest talent in a generation, the best of a middle school superteam.

Akashi highly doubts that this person is worth ruining Rakuzan’s reputation over, but he is a little curious, so he attends the next exhibition game.

Aomine doesn’t show up until halfway through the game, when Rakuzan’s up by twelve. He casually stretches on the sidelines (behavior like that would result in a benching if Akashi were the coach, talent or no) and enters with no word at all to anyone, while a smaller, nearly-invisible player slips off to the bench.

Akashi is no basketball expert, hasn’t touched a ball in years, but he can tell right away that Aomine is special, the way he cuts through the defense like a meat slicer, the way he rises above the knot of players under the net to dunk the ball, how he defies form and grace and mechanics to get the ball in the hoop, to an open teammate, away from the opposition. Not worth his shoddy academic record dragging the school’s name through the mud, but closer than Akashi wants to admit.

This is, perhaps, why he lets Momoi rope him into tutoring Aomine. She is a formidable opponent, but she recognizes Akashi as one, too, and allows him to set the terms. It is, of course, about the school’s reputation (though rescuing Aomine’s grades may inspire the admissions department to make more exceptions in the future--Akashi will make sure it won’t), but Akashi will allow that he is a little curious. Aomine thinks so quickly on the court, and someone as bright as Momoi couldn’t be close friends with someone whose wits weren’t sharp. He should be able to do better at school even without trying too hard.

The answer is elusive, but Aomine shows up on time to all of their sessions, and even as his grades begin to climb there is little to indicate it. There are things he regrets, clearly, things he is thinking about--not basketball; he's not that simple. 

Akashi is not impatient, though. He can wait to hear it all from Aomine, when he's ready. Which may be aooner than he'd planned, because he certainly isn't planning for Aomine to lean across the deak and kiss him when he does. (But Akashi can certainly make adjustments.)

* * *

Everyone knows Aomine, but Akashi is apparently the only person in their class Aomine knows, and only through basketball. There are some second-stringers in their class; of course Akashi knows them, but they barely seem to register to Aomine.

It's as if anyone he won't be playing basketball with in the next few days is entirely unimportant, as if he can't see beyond the next game, because there's so much room to play around in, so much basketball. This focus has, of course, been crucial in making him the basketball player he is today, but there's no reason he can't broaden his view at this juncture.

Or perhaps Akashi should simply let Aomine enjoy this, when he doesn't have to think beyond basketball.

("I do notice you," Aomine says, not so subtly brushing the back of his hand against Akashi's as they wall to practice--though, really, it's beside the point.)

* * *

Whoever coined the phrase 'battery' to refer to pitchers and catchers was probably not talking about a positive and negative end, one reining the other's impulse in. Or perhaps they were, but that kind of comparison is something only someone like Aomine could come up with, and Akashi has clearly been influenced negatively by him.

"Wow," says Aomine. "I'm impressed you threw him out."

The pitch had had so much movement on it, had ended up decisively not where Akashi's mitt had been set up (and nowhere near the strike zone), but the batter had swung. Akashi had risen to meet it, and easily thrown down to second, right on the line on the first base side of the bag. The runner had been out, though most other catchers wouldn't have had a shot in hell.

Most other catchers aren't Akashi.

"Are you surprised?"

"I didn't say I was."

"Aomine."

Aomine's nearly laughing, and were Akashi a more vindictive person he might do something rash.

As it is, he won't say yes to the curveball at all next inning.

* * *

More than any marketing campaign, more than years of networking with wealthy Americans, more than years of his father networking with wealthy Americans, the best way Akashi can get the company name out there is to buy a basketball team. Sales are up; stocks are up; the American side’s executives are thrilled (and all are chomping at the bit for luxury suites half a continent away from where they live and practice business--the Akashi group does not have an office in the state of Ohio at all).

Of course, it would have to be the Cavaliers, the employers of the biggest basketball star Japan has ever seen, and of course all the Japanese television deals are going to become a great deal easier. But, marketing aside, national ties aside, Aomine Daiki is a reason in himself.

He’d met Akashi, during the preliminary talks, alongside a host of unnecessary translators, executives, and the previous ownership (who clearly would do a hell of a lot in order to just take their money and get the hell out). Without the sweat and the basketball uniform, he’s actually quite attractive, even in a suit he clearly doesn’t want to wear; the callouses on his hand when Akashi shakes it are obvious but not unpleasant. 

“Do you like basketball?” Aomine had asked, bluntly.

“I played a bit as a child,” says Akashi. “Yes.”

“You should still play if you can,” Aomine had said.

And that had been the extent of their conversation, an opened door--could Akashi play? He’s in decent health, decent shape. He hasn’t picked up a basketball since elementary school, seen a full game since high school. The desire is still there--but the sports of choice among men in his age group and social class are still baseball, soccer, and golf. They aren’t young enough to have been inspired by Aomine, to have idolized him and the rest of his generation. 

Had Aomine said something else, or nothing at all, Akashi still would have gone forward. But he would be thinking only of business, money, opportunity, rather than indulging childish fantasies of spinning a basketball on his finger, the feeling of the ball so familiar to his memory, even now.

* * *

This year’s Winter Cup is all about the two of them. There’s no fooling; there is no one left in between. They have grown and vanquished personal grudges, risen and fallen in esteem, played together, against each other, two years removed from that first Winter Cup--and worlds away from the people they’d been back then. They are young, still, but adulthood and its trappings, sponsorships and professional contracts, universities and familial wants and expectations, are waiting around the corner to fall straight down on their heads.

No matter. Of course it’s important, but like the glow of a cell phone or a flickering flashlight under the blazing sun, in the moment it’s insignificant, invisible. What matters now is the bracket, the two of them on opposite sides, and rows of opponents to bulldoze through, to rise against and meet. It’s not easy, and nothing is sure. 

“You said we would,” says Aomine. “So I’m not worried.”

There is anticipation in the balls of his feet, as if he wants to ask Akashi for a one-on-one right this second, as if he’s leaping at the opportunity like a pond fish when it sees a hand (nevermind that the hand is empty), the same kind of excitement he’d had back in middle school distilled in the very different version of him that is here to stay.

“I meant it, but it’s a two-way street,” says Akashi, adjusting his scarf around his neck.

“Yeah, well,” says Aomine. 

He’s clenching his fist. There’s room in Akashi’s pocket.

“Cold?”

“No.”

His hand ends up there anyway, fingers curled around Akashi’s like a vine around a tree.


End file.
